Soldier's ad hoc TV plea launched orphans' charity

By WF Deedes

12:01AM GMT 21 Nov 2004

Col Mark Cook, a soldier of 30 years standing, was ending his tour of duty as commander of the British United Nations contingent in former Yugoslavia when he spotted a shattered Croatian orphanage. Quixotically he promised the children he saw loitering in the ruins that he would put the place together again for them.

If you believe that chance sometimes shapes our destinies, what followed is illuminating. Col Cook consulted an engineer who put the cost of rebuilding at £1 million. Where would it come from? Martin Bell, the war correspondent there for the BBC and friendly with Col Cook, had no ready answer.

Then Mr Bell was hit by shrapnel. Col Cook, standing next to him, narrowly escaped injury. Called on to give BBC television an eye-witness account of Mr Bell's wounding, Col Cook added a plea for the orphanage. "It was going out live," Col Cook says, "so they couldn't stop me."

The money came in. Thus the idea of Hope and Homes for Children was born and the charity, after finding homes for thousands of children has just marked its 10th birthday.

Col Cook, now its executive director, had just returned from Sierra Leone, when we met. It is one of the five African countries where HHC pursues its aim of finding family homes for orphaned and abandoned children. His journey had involved a round-trip via Freetown, Kamakwie and Makeni - 300 miles in a single day over what passes for roads in that part of Africa - very hard on the bottom, we agree.

Related Articles

What took him there? Chance again. His wife Caroline who shares his zeal for rescuing orphans took a reverse-charge call from Sierra Leone during that cruel war. "Please help us," said an unknown voice. Col Cook returned the call and agreed to go. "But put me up cheaply," he said. "We haven't much money." They put him up in the YMCA.

There, he rented a big house from the paramount chief of Makeni that sheltered 35 children. As we both remembered, it was a terrible war for children. I had been there to talk to child soldiers raked into the conflict, a surprising number of them immune from their experiences but others permanently damaged.

Some children, Col Cook recalled, were cut off behind the rebel lines for 20 months. How did they stay alive? Rice and basic vegetation. By the end of that war, Hope and Homes had found homes for 650 orphaned children.

Back in 1992, Col Cook reflects, there was too much emphasis on the Balkans. So his charity went to work in Eritrea, Sudan, Rwanda, South Africa as well as Sierra Leone. But it now also works in nine Eastern European countries.

"You will know better than I do," I said, "how many orphans there are going to be in Africa. HIV/Aids are bequeathing millions of orphans to that continent."

Yes, he knew that. "We have more orphans in the world than ever before in history," Col Cook admitted, adding: "In modern war 85 per cent of the casualties are civilians, so there are bound to be many more children with no one to look after them."

In such a world, one may ask, how can a modest charity such as Hope and Homes for Children hope to make an impact? After we had talked, lunched together and parted, I pondered this. A certain philosophy is called for if you take the road that Mark and Caroline Cook are on. Finding a family home with loving care for even one forsaken child, who would otherwise face life alone, is a victory.

The Cooks of this world do not think grandly as political leaders are apt to do of Africa as a challenge which given the will and enough money by the West can be resolved. They see it through different glasses.

"It's something I learnt in the Army," says Col Cook, "to have a focused aim. We focus on finding homes. When we started, we turned to orphanages. Then we wondered: were we doing the right thing? We asked the children, 'what do you want?' "The children's message was clear - 'We want a family, to be part of a family, to go to school. We want to be normal children, to be loved'." Hope and Homes took that as their marching orders. It is not surprising to learn that governments now seek advice from this charity.

"But," I ask, "in the disordered lands you work in, how do you set about finding orphans and loving homes for them?" "In all these countries torn by war," Col Cook replies, "there are good people, people who care for and love children and are willing to help and have time to give children love."

Having been in Rwanda with the Red Cross after the slaughter there, I knew the truth of that statement. Many Rwandans, ashamed of what had happened in their land, were extending a hand to orphans. I met a young Rwandan woman barrister who had left a good living at the Bar to make a home for half a dozen of them.

"Yes, there are good people in all these countries," I agreed, "but how do you find them?"

"We work with local people. They find the children and they find the homes. We are staffed by local people." It is a fact that in Africa, Hope and Homes has no expat staff. All its country directors are local people.

On his travels Col Cook is accompanied by a large woolly bear. He's known as Hope Bear. It helps to break the ice, he explains. You see, he is a real bear, not the picture of a bear. The children love Hope Bear and the paramount chief of Makeni was enchanted with him. Cook is looking round for a children's author who can put Hope Bear's travel's into a modern Beatrix Potter series: Bear in Romania, Bear in Eritrea.

Hope Bear and his modest contribution to the welfare of orphans, I reflected later, illustrate how far this retired British colonel who spent 30 years of his life commanding Gurkhas has learnt what appeals to children's hearts and minds. But he has also to strike a chord with the families whose help he wants in giving loving care to his orphans.

"None of the families you deal with have anything to spare," I reason, "and you are seeking from them more than love. You are asking them to feed more mouths."

"The solution to that," Col Cook explains, "is to enable the families involved to carry the extra burden." Much of his charity's funding, such as it is, goes into incentives.

A family that gives a loving home to a lost child will be given means to improve their lives. It may be buying a small piece of land. It may be help towards setting up a small shop or business. Enabling a poor family to better themselves opens arms to children who would otherwise languish in so-called orphanages. Some of these, such as the Mygoma orphanage in Khartoum, are no more than baby dumps with high death rates.

Col Cook knows that orphans are about to confront us with a global crisis. There will be millions of children with no one to look after them. They will be driven onto the streets; the girls to prostitution, the boys to begging, stealing and violence. Yes, there will be some grandmothers who are able to cope for a while. Older children, particularly girls, can be wonderfully good at caring for younger siblings. Col Cook puts the minimum age for doing that at 12.

Ultimately, however, the main load will fall on local communities. In Africa and other countries where HIV/Aids will create this global crisis, the route that Mark and Caroline Cook have chosen to take is likely to be seen as one to follow.

The candle they have lit seems to offer precious little light in the darkness that threatens to envelop many of the world's children. But if others light similar candles, it will grow less dark. There is no knowing what the love Hope and Homes for Children seeks to arouse in the human heart might achieve in a hard world.